While the future of the former Odeon cinema – which has been turned down for official listing six times – lurches towards its destiny in the Council’s planning process, welcome attention is being turned towards the thousands of historic and valuable buildings in the district which have been listed as worth preserving for the future.

Bradford Property Forum is to be congratulated for shining a light on the 5,800 or so grade I, II and III-listed properties which the Council is currently surveying in a bid to protect those at risk.

The Forum’s meeting also produced a signal from the Council’s conservation department that it may consider relaxing the listing of some buildings to prevent them from decaying beyond the point of repair by allowing developers to carry out some previously-restricted alterations which might make the schemes more viable.

With the construction and regeneration business in the doldrums thanks to the recession, this is a welcome move which may well have the effect of ensuring that some genuinely important properties, which may otherwise have been lost because no-one has the funds to restore them wholly to their former glory, will be saved for future generations.

Modern design and historic architecture can work well together – and we might immodestly quote the T&A’s award-winning building as an example – provided intelligence and sympathy for the quality of the original are applied in full measure.

Better that than allowing some of our listed gems to vanish forever.